{"id":182,"date":"2020-02-10T14:43:52","date_gmt":"2020-02-10T14:43:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/deepdive.tips\/?p=182"},"modified":"2020-02-10T16:10:19","modified_gmt":"2020-02-10T16:10:19","slug":"steffanie-strathdee-slaying-superbugs-and-saving-lives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deepdive.tips\/index.php\/2020\/02\/10\/steffanie-strathdee-slaying-superbugs-and-saving-lives\/","title":{"rendered":"Steffanie Strathdee: Slaying Superbugs and Saving Lives"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Steffanie Strathdee: Slaying Superbugs and Saving Lives<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

While on a bucket\nlist trip to Egypt, Steffanie Strathdee\u2019s husband Tom Patterson fell ill with\nwhat they first assumed to be food poisoning. They soon discovered it was much\nmore serious. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tom was diagnosed\nwith pancreatitis and gallstones. The gallstones had blocked his biliary duct,\nwhich had caused an abscess the size of a small football to form in his\nabdomen. When the fluid inside the abscess was cultured, doctors found the\n\u201cworst bacteria on the planet,\u201d Acinetobacter\nbaumannii<\/em>. This bacteria, nicknamed\nIraqibacter due to the veterans who have returned from the middle east with the\nsuperbug, is an organism that is very prone to acquiring antimicrobial\nresistance genes from other bacteria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tom\nwas very ill. With the combination of pancreatitis and the superbug, his chance\nof survival was no more than 10%. Acinetobacter baumannii <\/em>was only\npartially sensitive to three known antibiotics, and those were considered to be\nlast chance therapies. He was treated with those drugs, but his bacteria\nresisted all of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Steffanie\nis an infectious disease epidemiologist, but felt blindsided by Tom\u2019s\ndiagnosis. Luckily, she had the right combination of knowledge, access to\nresearch, and willing medical and research professionals to try alternative\ntherapies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her\nresearch led her to phage therapy. Bacteriaphage therapy (phage therapy, for\nshort), are viruses that have naturally evolved to attack bacteria. The perfect\npredator, they have been co-evolving with bacteria for 4 billion years. There\nare more than 10 million trillion trillion phages on earth and they are\neverywhere: in water, soil, and our bodies. Phage therapy has been a known\ntreatment against bacteria for decades, but has been practiced more in the\nformer Soviet Union since western countries started relying on penicillin and\nother antibiotics since the 1940\u2019s. The challenge is to find the particular\nphage that is effective against the bacterial infection being treated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\nare going to love this story of love, determination, resourcefulness and\ntriumph. Steffanie cured Tom\u2019s illness with the help of three universities, the\nUS Navy and researchers from across the world. What she discovered in the\nprocess is a super weapon against multidrug antimicrobial resistant diseases,\nwhich are expected to kill more than ten million people per year by 2050.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Links\nand notes:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n